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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26265361">Vide cor meum</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hoeratius/pseuds/Hoeratius'>Hoeratius</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon-Typical Violence, Crusades, Crusades Era Joe | Yusuf al-Kaysani &amp; Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Gen, Islamophobia, Maybe more of a Nicky coming of un-age story, Perhaps the real prize is the family and friends we lost along the way</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:28:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,287</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26265361</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hoeratius/pseuds/Hoeratius</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Nicolò: priest, cross-bearer, brother, idiot. When he arrives in the Holy Land, he is waiting for some kind of miracle. He just does not expect that miracle to be himself. After finding death at the hands of a fighter in Jerusalem, Nicolò tries to make sense of his new reality, but realises he can't do it alone.<br/>A Nicky coming-to-terms-with-his-immortality story. Enemies to friends to lovers.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Prologue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Nicolò picked at the red cross stitched onto his sleeve. His mother’s neat work had stood the test of the waters well, the scarlet cloth a shade or so lighter after weeks in the sun but otherwise still pristine. The same could not be said for the rest of him: hands rough from handling the ropes, skin darker than a Sicilian peasant’s in August, and armpits that might have been smelt for a mile away had the rest of the ship not been equally vile in its stench - he suspected his mother would not even have recognised him.</p>
<p>He caught Andrea’s gaze and lowered his hand. Leaning over the railing of the ship, he hoped his brother would get the message and leave him alone, but as ever Andrea had an almost supernatural ability to sense when his presence was unwanted.</p>
<p>Andrea rested his elbows on the ledge, ignoring the sapphire sea behind him, and nodded at the cross. ‘Missing San Michele?’</p>
<p>‘Always,’ said Nicolò. ‘Especially the way you never came.’</p>
<p>‘No need for confession if you’re fighting for the Cross.’ He smiled, a quick grin that used to make girls’ hearts flutter but did him little good in the middle of the Mediterranean. He dropped his hand to his hips, where a dagger hung next to his sword. ‘I can give you back your tonsure, if that makes you feel better.’</p>
<p>Instinctively, Nicolò felt the back of his head, where a apple-sized circle of hair was a couple of inches shorter than the rest.  With a grimace, he remembered how the skin had become raw and flaky from sunburn before his hair grew back. ‘I’ll pass, thanks.’</p>
<p>Andrea shrugged. ‘Shame. It suited you so well. But you got to pick up the sword after all, didn’t you?’</p>
<p>‘Lucky me.’ Nicolò swallowed, then wished he hadn’t. Water rations had been low recently, and his throat felt dry as sand. He’d learnt early on that, no matter how appealing it looked in the middle of a scorching afternoon, the sea water would not solve his problems.</p>
<p>‘Oh, get over yourself,’ said Andrea, giving him a shove. ‘We’re nearly there! The Holy Land. It’s no good getting homesick now. Come on. Give me a smile.’</p>
<p>Nicolò pressed his lips together tightly, but even so the hint of a smile began to take over his features. Andrea saw, and his eyes twinkled with the oncoming victory. ‘Just a little smile. For Jesus.’</p>
<p>Giving up, Nicolò chuckled and said, ‘Has anyone ever told you that you’re really annoying?’</p>
<p>‘You. Daily. Since you could talk.’</p>
<p>‘And that doesn’t bother you?’</p>
<p>‘Nah. I know you’re full of shit, Nico. All the Latin in the world couldn’t fix that.’</p>
<p>‘Rich, coming fr -’ he started, but a cry above their heads shut him up. Nicolò reached for his sword, turning around to get a view of the ship, ready for orders, but this time Marco didn’t announce enemy galleys. This time, he had seen land.</p>
<p>‘Jaffa, straight ahead!’</p>
<p>Nicolò and Andrea stood frozen, each watching the same emotions play out over the other’s face: shock, hesitation, disbelief, hope, and then, slowly but irrevocably, a giddy joy unlike anything they had ever felt before.</p>
<p>They had made it.</p>
<p>They were in the Holy Land.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The crusader way of life</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>‘Is He at least going to send us an angel with a flaming sword or something?’<br/>‘Andre,’ I said sharply. ‘If He wants us to take the city, He will provide. Raymond and and Godfrey have done this many times before. They know what they are doing.’<br/>Andrea shook his head, not in disbelief, but in denial. ‘They’ve lost tens of thousands of men already, Nico.’<br/>‘And always won,’ said Cristoforo. ‘Jerusalem is no worse than Antioch or Tyre. It’s a miracle that we’re all here, don’t you see?'</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jerusalem glowed in the light of dusk, and inside it waited the infidel.</p><p>My neck ached from staring up, but I could not stop. Every stone in that wall was not only an obstacle to be climbed, but part of the Holy City: the scene for Christ’s ministry, His Passion, His resurrection. A place that, by any stretch of the imagination, could only exist in Heaven, yet here it was, looming proud and beautiful atop its hill.</p><p>In only a few weeks, I might walk through the same streets as the Lord had over one thousand years before. The thought made my head spin.</p><p>I stumbled further, to the edge of the camp, where the valley of Josaphat stretched out beneath the city, until it sloped upwards to the Mount of Olives. The setting sun painted the rocky landscape in hues of gold, each rock leaving a shadow full of promise, each bush glowing like it could burst into divine fire at any moment. Until now, I had not thought there could be a more beautiful sight than the sea, but this land trembled with the divine. The air itself tasted of salvation.</p><p>A thick Genoese accent broke through my meditation. ‘You Nicolò?’</p><p>I tore my eyes away from the valley of our Final Judgement. ‘Who’s asking?’</p><p>Like most of the cross-bearers that had come via land, this man looked as if he had been living off water and bread all his life. The months in the desert sun had failed to hide the grey pallor of malnutrition and exhaustion, and yet his hollow cheeks were flushed with a zeal I recognised only too well.</p><p>The man smiled, revealing a gap where his front teeth had once been. ‘Cristoforo di Genova.’</p><p>‘And what do you need me for?’</p><p>‘Your brother is looking for you. They’ve managed to heat some food. Come, before it’s all gone.’</p><p>I glanced back at Jerusalem. Even in the brief moment since I had last looked, the shadows had changed, with only the tops of the roofs still glowing; the rest of the hill was fading into a blue darkness. I longed to watch it until it disappeared for the night, but my stomach announced the change of plan with a loud rumble.</p><p>No matter. Jerusalem will still be there tomorrow, and the day after that, and all days after that.</p><p>‘Amen,’ I whispered, and made the sign of the Cross.</p><p>Cristoforo guided me through the camp that had gathered around the city, carefully measured so as to remain out of the range of arrows but keeping the circle as small and thick as possible to prevent any citizens escaping out or food travelling in.</p><p>What had been an army when it set out had been reduced to a camp of hungry, desperate, squabbling individuals. Even if I had not been told of the poisoned wells and sunken food supply, I would have seen it etched in the hollow eye-sockets of the men, women, and children assembled here.</p><p>And yet, they had made it.</p><p>I stared at the face of a boy. He was no older than Matteo when we’d said goodbye in Genoa, but that was where the comparison between the two ended. The grime-covered skeleton resembled neither boy nor soldier; he was just hungry. His brown eyes flickered up when he noticed my stare, but I shook my head. I had nothing to give.</p><p>Cristoforo brought me back to the present.</p><p>‘He’d said it would be easy to recognise you but I hadn’t expected you two to look so much alike,’ he said. His husky cheer reflected the general atmosphere perfectly: exhausted and exhilarated at the same time.  ‘“Exactly like me, but less handsome”, I think he described you as.’</p><p>Of course he had. I could picture the exchange as if I’d been there myself. Which I had, many a time, if not ever featuring Cristoforo. ‘Yes, he still thinks that’s funny.’</p><p>‘With noses like that, you two are unmistakable.’</p><p>‘Has he made the joke yet about the size of his nose corresponding to other parts of his anatomy?’</p><p>Cristoforo laughed. ‘Not yet. I reckon he might save that one for the ladies.’</p><p>‘No, no, he’s willing to whip it out for whoever offers him the opportunity,’ I said. ‘And even some who don’t, if they’re unlucky.’</p><p>We approached a circle that could be heard arguing in loud, fast Genoese instead of the Lingua Franca used by many of the other soldiers. Along with Andrea, the group included the other Nicolò from our fleet, known as the Singer because of his melodious baritone, but no one else I recognised. They were seated around the smallest, smokiest fire I had ever seen. The Saracens had cut down all the trees around the city, and whatever wood could be salvaged was to be used for siege equipment, not cooking. The Genoese ships had been intended to provide more building materials, but we had had to set our vessel on fire when the Egyptians attacked. We’d still had managed to salvage most of the tools we’d come to deliver, but the continued scarcity of wood meant the cooking fires consisted of leaves and twigs.</p><p>‘Look what the cat dragged in.’ Cristoforo’s voice parted the crowd, expanding the circle so there was just enough space for two more. He placed his arm around my shoulders with the confidence of old friends. ‘Already eyeing up the walls. The siege won’t be far now you lot have come.’</p><p>‘Oh, that’s not what Nico was looking for,’ said Andrea, as we sat down. His cheeks were rosy, with sun or wine or pleasure I could not tell.  ‘My beloved brother is a priest, you see. He was probably just praying and thinking of the suffering of our Lord, nothing so base as the best strategy for a physical fight.’</p><p>‘You’ve got a lot of chat for someone who nearly pissed himself in Jaffa,’ I said.</p><p>The man next to me, a land-traveller, handed me some bread and a bowl filled with broth that imitated soup. I lifted it to my nose as surreptitiously as I could, trying to make out some of the ingredients, but no such luck.</p><p>At this rate, I’d soon look no better than the crusaders who had been in the Saracen lands for over a year already. Still, food was food and at least it was a change from the stale biscuits of the last fortnight.</p><p>Andrea accepted my rebuke with a laugh and a shrug. ‘Still managed to get three of them with the pointy end of my sword, though.’</p><p>‘A man after my own heart,’ said Cristoforo. ‘We’ll need all of you to have that attitude if we want to take this city.’</p><p>‘It looks more or less impossible,’ I said, remembering the way the city walls were a steeper continuation of the valley’s slope underneath. And that did not even get into the moat, whose waters still gushed from the mountain snows. ‘Yet I heard the city was taken only a few months ago?’</p><p>‘From Saracens, by other Saracens. They can’t even hold peace with each other,’ said Nicolò the Singer. ‘Doesn’t matter for us, though. They spent the entire winter repairing their own damage, so we’re back to where they started.’</p><p>‘And now we’re here to do the same,’ said Andrea. ‘Which goes to show that fools never learn.’</p><p>Cristoforo glanced up from his soup. ‘This is not the same. We’re not one savage tribe fighting with another godless bunch, Andrea di Genova. We are recovering the city for Christ. We are an army of God, sent by God.’</p><p>An awkward silence descended over the group until the corner of Andrea’s mouth twisted up into a resigned smile, one I recognised only too well from his dealings with me.  ‘You are right, Cristoforo. This time will be different. <em>Deus</em> <em>vult</em>.’</p><p>‘<em>Deus vult!</em>’</p><p>Some of the others in our circle copied the motto that the Pope himself had given this journey, but I remained quiet. Dipping my bread into the broth until it got some flavour, I remembered the burnt-out harbour of Jaffa we had sailed into, destroyed beyond repair. Did that same fate await the Holy City? If not by us, then by the heathens inside, who would rather see Jerusalem burn than watch it fall into the hands of the true faith?</p><p>I glanced over my shoulder, where the Jerusalem waited for us like a bride at the start of a wedding procession, and had my answer. This time would be different. A city so pure, won by through such trial and tribulation, could only ever thrive.</p><p>‘So about those walls walls…’ said Andrea, his eyes narrowed in that way he had where he was about to say something blasphemous. I raised my eyebrows in warning, but he did not hesitate.  ‘Not to doubt that anything is possible if God wants it, but they do look pretty impressive to me. Assuming we don’t get divine help, what’s the plan?’</p><p>‘Good, old-fashioned trickery,’ said the Singer.</p><p>Cristoforo swirled the soup in his bowl as he explained: ‘That’s what your supplies are for. Two siege towers, one north, one south, both constructed in the south. That way, the heathen will think we’re planning our attack there. And then, just before we attack, we move one of them north, right by the valley. They won’t have fortified that area. It’ll be easy pickings.’</p><p>‘And they’re only starting the construction now?’ asked Andrea.</p><p>‘We tried before without proper supplies,’ said Cristoforo. ‘It didn’t go well.’</p><p>‘But if we haven’t even begun…’ Andrea opened his blue eyes wide as the full meaning of that dawned on him. ‘When the Fatimid reinforcements are mere weeks away? And we have nothing?’</p><p>‘We have God on our side,’ said Cristoforo.</p><p>‘Is He at least going to send us an angel with a flaming sword or something?’</p><p>‘Andre,’ I said sharply. ‘If He wants us to take the city, He will provide. Raymond and and Godfrey have done this many times before. They know what they are doing.’</p><p>Andrea shook his head, not in disbelief, but in denial. ‘They’ve lost tens of thousands of men already.’</p><p>‘And always won,’ said Cristoforo. ‘Jerusalem is no worse than Antioch, Tyre, Acre. God gave us each of those cities; He won’t stop here. It’s a miracle that we’re all here, don’t you see?’ He placed his empty bowl between his legs, so his free hands added even more fervour and colour to his words than his increased volume already did.</p><p>Andrea opened his mouth, but I cut him off before he could dig himself in deeper.  ‘Andrea has always struggled to see the bigger picture, messer Cristoforo. You must excuse us. We’ve travelled for a long time and are not yet used to the Crusader way of life.’</p><p>‘“A long time”,’ said Cristoforo, but he lowered his hands into his lap. ‘Two months isn’t that long. Not for us, anyway.’</p><p>Not long after, he excused himself to get some sleep, and Andrea had the decency to wait with his sigh of relief until Cristoforo was out of reach.</p><p>‘Remind me not to mention the Big Guy to him,’ he said.</p><p>‘He’s been out here for a long time,’ I reminded him. ‘He has given God everything.’</p><p>‘Including his capacity for critical thought.’</p><p>‘That’s not what faith is about.’ I realised the conversation inched closer to exactly the kind of preaching Andrea had wished to avoid, and added: ‘Anyway, it’s not like you ever had any critical thinking, so I don’t see what you’re complaining about.’</p><p>Night drew swiftly over the camp, driving out the day’s heat and leaving the stars in their wake. Singing rose from other parts of the camp: hymns at first, then turning into more worldly music as the moon rose and woke up the hidden features of the camp. Thin shadows moved from one group to another, sometimes alone, sometimes in groups of two or three. One such pair appeared in the empty space left by Cristoforo, sinking into a squat so their faces were level with ours.</p><p>‘I don’t recall seeing you here before,’ a woman’s voice said, in an accent and language that were impossible to place. She lowered her hood, revealing a round face and long braid that looked ink-black in the darkness. ‘Are you our Genoese saviours?’</p><p>Andrea scuffled aside to make place for her and her friend. ‘Those very ones. And who are you two lovely ladies?’</p><p>‘Anna of Constantinople,’ said the first. ‘And my friend, Theophania.’</p><p>Theophania sat down next to me, the bare skin of her arm brushing against my sleeve. Almond-shaped eyes shimmered as she said, ‘Welcome to Jerusalem. You don’t mind if we join you, do you?’</p><p>‘Not at all,’ I said.</p><p>Anna smiled as she stretched out her legs. ‘How went your journey hither?’</p><p>‘Well, you know, we Genoese, we’re a sea-faring people.’ Andrea said it with such confidence, I had to check if this was the same man who had spent the first two days of the journey vomiting over the railing. ‘The waves don’t scare us, not even in a storm, so the whole affair feels just like an adventure.’</p><p>‘That is such a lovely way of phrasing it, messer…?’</p><p>‘Andrea.’ Andrea flashed her a grin, reached into his bag until he found a rock-hard piece of bread to hand her.</p><p>Her smile wavered as she broke the bread into two more-or-less even pieces, and handed half of it to Theophania, who tore into it with her teeth. Anna did not have that luxury yet, resting her hand on Andrea’s knee. ‘We heard you were attacked at Jaffa.’</p><p>‘Yes - bloody Saracens.’ From his voice, I could tell that Andrea was gearing up for a story, and I rolled my eyes.</p><p>‘They had been lying in wait for us, just around the bent of Jaffa. So we were unloading our supplies, getting ready to put a foot ashore for the first time in weeks, when the clarion called from the furthermost ship. Three blows: the enemy. Now,’ he said, shifting into position, while Anna ate the bread as quickly as she could, ‘picture this: the ruins of the harbour, still smoking, enemies hiding God knows where in the hills, and then six ships filled with Egyptians, armed right up to the teeth.’</p><p>Anna swallowed the piece of her bread so quickly she choked. Andrea slapped her on the back and then left his arm there, his fingers playing at the nape of her neck, as she said, ‘Oh, wow. What did you do when they attacked?’</p><p>‘Well,’ said Andrea, ‘it’s difficult to remember now, because at the time - you hear that battle drum, and pure instinct takes over.  All that matters is you, the enemy, and the waters that separate you.  So…’</p><p>Seemingly unaware of the way Anna had him wrapped around her thin finger already, he gave her a more glorious account of the fight than either of us deserved. I remembered the enemy drum, the way it had set me aflame against these murderous strangers until they retreated, their faster ships moving out of the reach of our swords and rage.</p><p>Theophania turned her back to him and lifted her face to mine. Her breath smelt like bile. Purring like a kitten, she asked, ‘And what about you? Did you find the journey long?’</p><p>I did, but already knew what the follow-up question would be if I admitted that. ‘I didn’t mind it. Did you join the army in Constantinople?’</p><p>She licked her lips. ‘I’m from Antioch, actually.’</p><p>‘Oh.’</p><p>What to say to that? ‘I’m sorry’? Whichever side she had been on during that siege, she would have lost loved ones. The Saracens’ preemptive slaughter of the Christian citizens had filled the hearts of the soldiers outside the walls with the zeal needed to conquer the stronghold. And what had been left of it afterwards, if a girl like Theophania preferred to follow the army and sell her body for a scrap of stale bread?</p><p>‘I’m happy to be here, though,’ she said. ‘Otherwise I might never have seen the Holy City. I look forward to praying in the Holy Sepulchre.’</p><p>‘Me, too.’</p><p>We smiled at each other, and I wished I had some more food to give her, but I’d all but licked the soup bowl by the end. Whatever was happening next in the siege of Jerusalem, it had better happen quickly, because this army would not be able to last much longer.</p><p>Andrea tapped my shoulder. ‘Nico.’</p><p>‘Hmm?’</p><p>‘Do you think God would mind if I…?’ He indicated Anna with a jerk of his head.</p><p>‘It’s not whether God would mind. Crusading free pass, remember? But…’ I said, watching his face fall, ‘you might want to ask yourself what Lena would say.’</p><p>He considered this for a second, but not strenuously so. ‘She’s a woman of the world, she’ll understand. But, God-wise, you don’t need to absolve me?’</p><p>‘Andrea!’</p><p>‘I’m just checking,’ he said, causing a peal of laughter from Anna behind him.</p><p>‘Even if I needed to, absolution requires some sort of contrition.’ I lowered my eyes to the part of his tunic that had risen significantly since the arrival of Anna and her friend. ‘You’re clearly not sorry. Come back to me when you’ve committed the sin and then we’ll talk.’</p><p>‘And you won’t tell Lena?’</p><p>She’d still been plump from the birth of Federico when we’d left. I pictured her now, in our parental home overlooking the mountains, nursing my nephew and praying for the safe return of her husband. But Andrea was right; she was a woman of the world. She’d have no illusions of his behaviour.</p><p>‘I promise I won’t tell Lena.’</p><p>I watched their retreating backs as they sought a spot away from the fire. Theophania must have read something in my expression or body language, because she rose as well. ‘Thank you for the bread, Nico. It was very kind of you. Maybe I’ll see you around some other time?’</p><p>‘Maybe, Theophania. Stay safe, all right?’</p><p>She and I knew that promise was not in her hands. As she moved towards the next group of soldiers, I wondered how far God would go in the pardon of his soldiers. I hoped He was generous.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Whom shall I fear?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Incredulously, I lifted my head as far as I could and looked at the face of my killer. The one who was not a soldier, the one whose dark eyes opened so wide I could make out the white around his irises, the one whose hand wet his beard with scarlet from my neck, and I realised.<br/>I was his first kill.</p><p>Feat: a meet-not-cute during the Siege of Jerusalem and a Nicky's rampant religiosity.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Not sure if my attempt at battle writing counts as graphic since I don't even watch battle scenes in movies, but if you're not keen on blood, slaughter, religious zeal or islamophobia, maybe give this one a miss.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Any doubt I might have had about the justness of our cause faded with each continued day of miracles.</p><p>No diseases ravaged the starving troops.</p><p>Two entire siege towers rose over the course of less than three weeks.</p><p>The heathen reinforcements failed to arrive.</p><p>And then, in mid-July, Nicolò the Singer ran over to tell us, between heaving breaths, that the time had come. The second tower would be moved to the other side of the Damascene gate that night, whence Godfrey and Tancred would launch their assault on the weakened part of the walls, while Raymond would take the fight where it would be heaviest: in the south, charging from Mount Zion.</p><p>‘We’re with Raymond,’ he said, clenching his hands into fists. ‘He knows nothing beats the bravery of the Genoese.’</p><p>‘For God!’ called Cristoforo.</p><p>‘And glory.’ Andrea clasped hands with Nicolò, Cristoforo, me, and in his eyes I could already see the same passion that had overtaken him when the Egyptians attacked. I felt it coursing through my veins as well, a dreadful lightness tingling underneath my skin, right up into my fingertips. Jerusalem, Jerusalem!</p><p>The transformation did not stop with us. Everywhere in the camp, the worn-out faces shone with the valour God himself breathed into His soldiers. Previously routine actions such as the sharpening of our blades or confession took on a new urgency, now we didn’t have tomorrow and tomorrow again to fix our errors. One way or another, we were at the brink of eternity.</p><p>I couldn’t sleep. Despite knowing that I should rest before battle, my mind whirred with the future. The fights, the glory, and the very real possibility that this might be the last night of my life. Would it hurt, death? Or would the wounds glow with piety and offer me entrance to Paradise?</p><p>I rested my hand on my heart, felt it beating steadily against my ribs. At my movement, Andrea turned over beside me, rolling onto his back.</p><p>‘Nico?’</p><p>‘Yes?’</p><p>‘Are you awake?’</p><p>‘No.’ I propped my head up on my arm, fighting against my heavy eyelids. Andrea’s silhouette was closer than I expected, a familiar blackness against the night guards’ torches. We weren’t not the only ones suffering from restlessness; Raymond’s tent was lit, and voices carried far across the plain. ‘Everything all right, Andre?’</p><p>He nodded, but more was coming. I closed my eyes shut against the headache while I waited for him to gather his thoughts. When he spoke again, there was a tremor in his voice I had never heard before.</p><p>‘Will you pray with me, brother?’</p><p>‘Of course.’</p><p>I moved to stand up, but there was no need: this piece of sandy ground was as good a place for prayer as any. Kneeling beside Andrea, I folded my hands closed and led him in the Our Father: ‘Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be Your name.’</p><p>More than ever, I understood the truth in those words. His kingdom was coming, His will was being done on earth as in Heaven, in a way unlike anything before. We - the army, the Genoese, Andrea, I - were nothing but tools in His hands, about to fulfil our destiny. Amen, amen, amen, I prayed with every breath. As the soldiers around us awoke, the air hummed with their praises for God, our unworthy, loved voices begging his forgiveness for what might be the last time.</p><p>By the time Raymond’s trumpeter roused us to action, we were ready. I glanced at Andrea as he pulled on his chain mail, his cheeks covered with the night’s stubble, clenching and unclenching his hands after being clasped in prayer for so long, and felt a rush of love for him so strong it choked me up.</p><p>He looked up, and his face shone with Christ’s charity. He pressed me close to him, his grip so tight my chain mail pressed through my tunic into my skin, like a final act of penance. When we finally let go, I cradled his face in both my hands. If only our father had been here to see us…</p><p>‘Go with God, my son,’ I said. ‘He will protect you.’</p><p>‘I don’t need Him when I’ve got you.’</p><p>We didn’t need to say anything more. By the end of today, we would have found the Kingdom of Heaven one way or another.</p><p> </p><p>**</p><p> </p><p>We made it over the walls, Hallelujah!</p><p>The sight of Jerusalem stole the breath from my lungs. For a split second, I basked in the eternity of the Holy City and its terrifying, astonishing beauty. Then, I raised my sword and hacked at the Saracen charging towards me, deflecting his attack. Before he had lifted his curved knife again, Andrea had already swung at his neck. Warm blood gushed over us as the Saracen dropped his weapon and clutched at his throat, as if he was trying to stem the flow of his heathen life. He sank to his knees, but there was no need to finish him off - time would do the work for us.</p><p>I stepped over his twisting body and moved on.</p><p>My blade sang with the psalms of the Lord. And now my head shall be lifted above my enemies around me - I will offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy. For each wounded heathen who had defiled Jerusalem with his ungodly ways, every time I pulled my blade back and found it red and shimmering, I rejoiced in the work of His war. With Andrea by my side, I liberated Jerusalem, stone by stone, blow by blow, and nothing could stop us.</p><p>We fought our way along the wall, stabbing and kicking and shoving the enemies of God. I watched them collapse where they stood, fall off the parapet, clutch at the scarlet stump that had held a hand only moments before. The sun rose higher and hotter and brighter but we did not pause for breath. We did not need to.</p><p>I ran ahead of the others, safe in the knowledge that God was ahead of me and Andrea behind. Already I could see the next set of soldiers, poised with their blades in front of them, their white turbans still unsullied by slaughter.</p><p>But not for much longer.</p><p>The one on the left was bigger: bigger shoulders, bigger sword, bigger fury. He had to go first; the second didn’t strike me as a soldier. The way his feet were planted as if he was still considering flight, he offered an easy target for Andrea.</p><p>‘Deus vult!’ I cried, as I launched myself towards the left. Instead of the resistant sword I expected to find, the man swerved aside and there was nothing to take my blow. The soles of my shoes, slippery with blood, slid over the stones where the Saracen had just been, and I could only just duck away before he came for me. Screaming in his godless tongue, he charged, swung, retreated when I responded, and both of us raised our swords again.</p><p>We circled around each other, breathing heavily, as behind my back, Andrea’s groans rose up from the aftermath of that scuffle. Iron sliced against distant iron, but I only saw the enemy in front of me. He narrowed his eyes, and I felt myself do the same, as we each calculated the other’s next move. It was a thrilling game of cat-and-mouse, the seconds stretching out like days, until he halted.</p><p>He shouted at me again, and even though I didn’t understand the exact words, I could tell a taunt in any language. No matter, not when Death waited just around -</p><p>A shadow flitted on my right, coming from behind, so fast I only registered it after he had pulled down my hood and pressed his knife into the exposed skin of my throat. Just as swiftly, he drew it back and stepped aside.</p><p>The front of my tunic was caked with blood, dried, crusty, brown, all of that Saracen blood now being hidden under the stream of my own. Incredulously, I lifted my head as far as I could and looked at the face of my killer. The one who was not a soldier, the one whose dark eyes opened so wide I could make out the white around his irises, the one whose hand wet his beard with scarlet, and I realised.</p><p>I was his first kill.</p><p>I coughed, but did not feel the pain or exultation I had thought accompanied death. The world spun, and suddenly I found myself looking at the man from the level of his shoes, dusty and new. I longed to raise my head and watch the bastard run, but everything was so heavy. Through a red haze, I heard Andrea’s voice - ‘Nico, Nico, brother!’ - and then watched as my brother’s feet came for my killer. I coughed again, and this time it broke through my stupefaction, and it burnt my throat like I had swallowed hot embers.</p><p>I watched, as Andrea’s sword came down on the neck of the Saracen. As he hacked again and again until the man’s robes were torn everywhere and only the force of Andrea’s anger kept him upright. As Andrea spat in his face and pushed him over the wall, his body already lifeless and yet meeting another death below. Perhaps there was screaming. I didn’t know. I could not hear.</p><p>Andrea’s face appeared before me, his mouth moving, his eyes the colour of the sky in November, just like our mother’s. Tears dripped down his cheeks, but he did not need to cry. I tried to tell him, opened my lips, I thought I opened my  lips, maybe sound came out, but the air felt wrong on my tongue and my mouth filled with blood and it did not matter now anyway.</p><p>I was going to God.</p><p>Hallelujah.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Lazarus</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Feeling steadier, I lifted myself up and surveyed the scene that spread out around me.<br/>This was not Heaven.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Nicolò comes back from the dead for the first time and finds a 'liberated' Jerusalem.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>First half of this chapter has potentially gruesome descriptions of post-battle carnage in Jerusalem - if that's not your thing, you should be safe after the asterisks. Hope you enjoy it!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Everything hurt a lot more than it should in Heaven. My back, my arms, my head, but beyond anything else my throat, all of it ached. With my eyes closed, I waited for something - angels, manna, or just some water - but all that came was the thick buzzing of flies around my ears and the unmistakable scent of putrefaction.</p>
<p>I shielded my eyes before I opened them, blinking against the brightness outside. The sky overhead was one I knew well: not just the earthly heaven, but the one over Jerusalem at the start of evening, the blue expanse fading into pink, yellow and white by the horizon. I lay as still as I could, trying to piece together where I was and what had happened, breathing heavily through my mouth to avoid the worst of that <em>smell</em>.</p>
<p>The siege - we had broken through their defences under Raymond, we had entered, we were winning. I remembered it all so clearly, not like a dream that flits away as you clutch at the details, but as if it had happened only yesterday.</p>
<p>Feeling steadier, I lifted myself up and surveyed the scene that spread out around me.</p>
<p>This was not Heaven.</p>
<p>The flies I’d heard were loud and hungry, hovering over the soulless face of a Saracen. A particularly fat specimen crawled over the open eye, rubbing its front feet together over the iris before setting off to settle on a chest wound that I thought I had administered. All the way along the walls, the stones were lined with unmoving bodies at unnatural angles, lying in rust-coloured pools of their own blood.</p>
<p>I grasped at my throat, remembering the coldness of the knife as it cut through me, but my fingers met with unbroken, stubbly skin. I brushed up and down over my Adam’s apple down to the hollow at my clavicle. My hand came back dry, with only the brown residue underneath my nails hinting at the blood that I was sure had flowed down. A look down confirmed it; what else could have drenched the top of my tunic so completely?</p>
<p>A shaky breath that should have been impossible escaped from my chest. I could have sworn -</p>
<p>The shocked, wide eyes of my killer flashed before me. He had slit my throat, hadn’t he?</p>
<p>Hadn’t he?</p>
<p>I looked around for his body, for a confirmation that I had not made him up. His friend was real - or had been, his corpse waiting for the crows a couple of yards from where I had woken up. But my killer I couldn’t find.</p>
<p>The earlier weakness had left me now, and my head was clear save for the fact that I didn’t have a clue what had happened to me. Andrea had been there, and - yes - fought that Saracen. From my lowered position against the ground, I had seen him push the body over the ledge. That would explain where the infidel had gone.</p>
<p>One mystery solved.</p>
<p>The shouts, cries, shrieks, and thick billows of smoke told me the siege wasn’t yet over. I reached for my sword, but my scabbard was empty. Now that I paid attention, I noticed my hands were empty, too; the ring my father had given me when I was called to the church had disappeared. Someone had looted my body without checking if I were really dead.</p>
<p>The realisation unsettled me, but not as much as my lack of weaponry did. Stumbling from body to body, infidel and Christian alike, I searched for something to defend myself with. In the end, I picked up a dagger from a Saracen, covering the meaningless scribbles of their script with my hand. Whatever curses they carried around would be powerless in the City of God.</p>
<p>Once again able to defend myself, I followed the trail of death until I reached a curved set of steps. The body that obstructed the doorway had already begun to smell funny in the heat, and I took care not to touch him as I stepped over him. As I descended the steps, surrounded on all sides by stone walls for the first time since I left San Michele, I breathed in the dry loneliness. Even the sounds of fighting had subsided, as if God wanted me to have this moment of peace to myself before he unveiled His city to me.</p>
<p>Smoke tickled the inside of my nose and brought me a taste of Jerusalem.</p>
<p>It was not Heaven.</p>
<p>The moment I stepped onto the sandy road, I saw destruction as I had never imagined. Corpses were strewn all over the street, not just men, but women and children amid the debris and destruction of what had been a street this morning. A carpenter’s workshop blazed with fire, brains smeared over the half-finished table outside. An old man’s head waited on the windowsill, the flames not quite licking his hair just yet.</p>
<p>A stream trickled down along the gutter, not of rain but blood. At the source of the stream lay a woman, or rather a girl, her lifeless arm extended to a babe’s swaddling cloth. The baby was nowhere to be seen. I averted my eyes from her bare legs, which still looked pale and delicate, like the torn petals of a lily. I started for the next street, but halted just as I rounded the corner.</p>
<p>I could not leave her here like this.</p>
<p>Kneeling by her head, I made the sign of the Cross over her face. When I tried to brush her eyelids closed, they wouldn’t budge; death had already frozen them. Her dark irises stared just over my shoulder, devoid of the desperation in the rest of her body, and yet utterly without peace. With a shiver, I pulled her dress down over her legs and rose again. What else could I do? She was with God now, I hoped. Unless she was a Jewess or a Saracen, but -</p>
<p>A bitterness rose up in my mouth. Turning my back on the girl, I rolled my neck and my shoulders to try and get back into the frenzy I had been in before I got knocked out. It was just a lot harder when the consequences of that frenzy paved the path to battle, no longer fearsome warriors to strike down but just - people.</p>
<p>I needed to find the others.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>**</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Come dusk, the Genoese celebrated by the Dome of the Rock, the glorious golden dome the polar opposite of the gore-splattered soldiers of the true faith. Jubilant, roasting a calf on a fire fed by broken chairs and straw, they laughed and sang and bantered like the victors they were. I counted the heads - nine, not the twelve that normally made up our band of brothers. Once again I felt for my throat, wondering what had happened to the other two.</p>
<p>I staggered closer, lured closer by the promise of food. I hadn’t had anything to eat since this morning, and I was ravenous. Yet something made me pause at the edge of the circle. Like something had happened between the Saracen’s knife and the men here, which put me outside of their companionship.</p>
<p>Cristoforo rose to turn the spit, and as he settled back in his chair, he looked up and saw me.</p>
<p>‘Santa Maria,’ he whispered, and made the sign of the cross. In the light of the flames, his face shone with sweat and salvation. He shook his head, slowly at first and then faster, exuberantly. ‘Mother of God, Nicolò – Nicolò –’</p>
<p>Before any of the others registered what was going on, he had leapt up, darted past the fire, and embraced me. I breathed in the living scent of him, the stale sweat a welcome reminder of his life, the front of his tunic warm from the flames. Looking over his shoulder, I saw the others turn towards me, each expression dripping with the same bewilderment as Cristoforo’s.</p>
<p>‘You’re alive,’ the Singer said, reaching out to stroke my hair, as if he had to touch me to believe it. ‘How can this be? I saw you –’</p>
<p>I wrestled myself free from Cristoforo, who kissed me on both cheeks and made the sign of the cross again. He and the others parted, creating an empty space around me, their circle willing but not daring to accept me. I studied each of them in turn: Luciano, whose nose was at an angle and missed two more teeth in his smile; Nicolò the Singer, nursing a rose-coloured bandage around his forearm; Carlo, gaunt and grinning as ever, all of them covered in soot and scraped and cuts and blisters. And then I reached Andrea - alive, whole, frozen - and recognised my ring around his finger, my sword dangling next to his, and his eyes brimming with tears.</p>
<p>‘Nico…’</p>
<p>He broke the spell of awe. Crushing me against his chest, he buried his face in my neck, hot tears falling from his chin onto my shoulder. I pressed my cheek into his hair, which was matted with dirt and pressed close to his skull after hours under his chain mail. By all means he was disgusting, caked with death, but even so I struggled to let go of him. He felt like life.</p>
<p>‘How?’ he asked, scanning my face, my neck, my blood with his eyes. His fingers tightened around my arms, anchoring me to the world.</p>
<p>I opened my mouth, but didn’t have an answer. I just shook my head. ‘I don’t know.’</p>
<p>‘It’s a miracle,’ said Cristoforo.</p>
<p>The word had slipped through my mind as well, but it still came as a shock hearing it said out loud. A miracle - but it could not be true. To have been resurrected… It could not be.</p>
<p>‘I thought you were…’ Andrea exhaled and blinked away his tears. ‘Nico, I am so sorry.’</p>
<p>‘For what?’</p>
<p>‘I shouldn’t have left you there. Brother, I didn’t want to - I would never have - but I was so sure…’ He fumbled with the ring around his finger, the band just a bit too small to take off easily, and handed it back to me. A thin circle of clean skin stood out against the filth on his hands. ‘If I’d known…’</p>
<p>I closed my palm around the ring, still warm from Andrea. ‘I know. I thought so, too, I…’</p>
<p>‘Then what happened?’ asked the Singer. ‘Last time I saw you, you were choking in your own blood. And now…’</p>
<p>‘You must’ve seen it wrong,’ I said. ‘I can’t remember what happened. Maybe it looked worse than it was.’</p>
<p>Andrea embraced me again, then pulled me down next to his seat. ‘It doesn’t matter now. You’re here, and that’s what’s important. God did not wish for you to leave us yet. Come, come - have you eaten? Oi - boy! You! Bring some bread and ale for my brother, back from the dead!’</p>
<p>I  attacked the meal with as much zeal as I had the Saracens, stuffing my mouth and washing it away with the lukewarm beer. The other men filled me in on what happened while I was unconscious: the parts of the city still waiting for complete liberation, the deaths of our comrades, the angel that had descended from heaven to praise Raymond for his valour. I listened at first, when Andrea told me with a lump in his throat of Fanucio’s fate, but the constant stare of Cristoforo meant I could not keep my attention on the here and now, not even if the here and now were in a free Jerusalem.</p>
<p>A miracle, he’d said. If they ever were to happen, it would be during this, the most holy of battles. Anything was possible if God willed it, but had He pulled me back from the brink of Heaven? If so, what had been His purpose? What did I have to do?</p>
<p>It was easier to assume it had been a misunderstanding. A blow that had knocked the air from me, the blood of my enemies mistaken for mine, clarity lost in the mayhem of battle. God’s hand might have saved me by drawing away the enemy knife at just the right time.</p>
<p>That was what had happened. A miracle, maybe, but a small one.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Dreams</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Finally falling asleep on a pillow of my own hands in the night-long dawn of the fires, I dreamt of the woman I had found. Through a cloud of smoke I watched as she clung to her baby, pressing his little head against her shoulder, turning away from her assailant only to be faced with another. Her pleas - ‘No, please, no, not my baby, please’ - came out in a voice hauntingly like Elena’s. When one of her attackers caught sight of me, he slapped the front of his chest, where a red cross blossomed like blood.</p><p>The woman’s features shifted, changing from the dead girl by the city walls into Elena, and the swaddling cloth she held out to me was no longer empty. The blue eyes of my nephew, Federico, who had still been a pink, crying little worm when we set off, stared at me with wonder.</p><p>The cross-bearer snatched the baby and smashed him against the wall.</p><p>I jerked awake, almost expecting to find myself on the walls, surrounded by death, but still with time to save the woman below.</p><p>But the loud snoring of my compatriots broke through the muted horrors on the other side of the city. I glimpsed at Andrea, whose bruised and bloodied frown revealed his own midnight terrors, but they were now fought in his mind. Nothing happened here.</p><p>Although exhaustion willed me to put my head down and catch some more sleep, I was afraid to close my eyes. At least out here, night covered most of the damage, unlike the bright colours of my imagination. Groaning, I pushed myself up against the sandy ground, marvelling at the fact my hands had made it through such a day without a scratch.</p><p>‘I’ll take it from here,’ I said, when Cristoforo twisted to check out the noise. ‘Get some rest. I can’t sleep anyway.’</p><p>Cristoforo’s yawn confirmed his assent. As he moved towards the spot of ground that had been my bed, he said, ‘It gets easier, you know. The nights. But the first one is Hell.’</p><p>I didn’t respond. Wrapping my arms around my knees, I stared down the silent square, where the victorious soldiers of Christ caught some longed-for rest. Three years, some of them had spent trying to get here, liberating and sacking and pillaging as they went. How many sieges, how many cities had seen the fate of Jerusalem?</p><p>Toying with my ring, I travelled back to the grey stone and dazzling sea of home, where my parents were probably praying every night for our safety. What would my mother say if she could see me like this, drenched in another’s blood? Heathen or Christian, I could not help the feeling that she would disapprove. My father - well, he’d never thought I had much martial valour. Today was the ultimate proof that he had raised two sons, and not one son and one priest.</p><p>As the hours trudged past, the partying across the city died down. Perhaps my fellow soldiers had drunk themselves into a stupor. Perhaps a band of citizens had risen against them. I sat alone and listened to the silence, and tried not to think of the Saracen’s knife slicing through my windpipe.</p><p>And then - birdsong.</p><p>After all the blood, the violence, the feasting, the fire, the ransacking and the prayers, a bird announced the start of a new day, unaware that the Holy City had changed hands from the godless to the faithful.</p><p>By the time dawn spread her golden fingers over the carnage, my eyes itched with sleep. I waited until the first of my fellow Genoese twitched - Nicolò the Singer - and handed him the baton of guarding the others.</p><p>‘Where are you going?’ he asked.</p><p>‘I need to pray.’</p><p>The circles under his eyes puffed with exhaustion, but he nodded in understanding. ‘I’ll tell Andrea when he wakes up.’</p><p>I rinsed my mouth with some beer and set off through eerily quiet streets. Clothed in morning blues, some parts of the city betrayed nothing of yesterday, the sandstone houses and workshops appearing ready for another day. But most walls of Jerusalem announced her grief like a wailing widow: broken-down doors, ashes, streaks of blood marred the streets Jesus used to wander. Like the inhabitants of these houses, His love had grown meagre and skeletal over weeks of siege, until it appeared there was nothing left.</p><p>A group of plunderers - soldiers - crusaders blundered past me, each with a carpet slung over their shoulder. They reached for their swords when they saw me, until one pointed out the Genoese cross on my arm in his thick accent. Frenchmen. They carried themselves like they owned the place, which, considering the leadership of this expedition, they probably did.</p><p>‘You lost?’ one asked, in the pidgin we all shared in the camps.</p><p>‘Church of the Holy Sepulchre?’</p><p>His friend pointed his thumb over his shoulder. ‘Up there, go left when you see the butcher’s. There’s a whole crowd, you can’t miss it.’</p><p>‘Thanks.’</p><p>‘Go with God, my friend,’ he said. I repeated the wish, wondering if either of us could, and set off. God and I had some things to discuss.</p><p> </p><p>**</p><p> </p><p>I visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre every day. Learning on that first day to take a roundabout route to avoid the grotesque spectacle at ‘the butcher’s’, I prayed and prayed until my knees ached from the cold stone floor, and then I prayed some more. I visited all the sites of our Lord’s Passion, waiting to see His love and sacrifice and be lifted to that heaven I thought I had reached. But even during the Massacre of the Innocents, Judea could not have seen such suffering as I witnessed here. None of these streets bore any sign of the Saviour’s presence. This place was beyond saving.</p><p>During the days, I prayed. At night, I dreamt.</p><p>First of the woman and her child, who resembled Elena more and more every time, even if the child morphed from one nephew into another: Mattia, Federico, then my niece Costanza with her delighted smile. Then one evening, as Andrea and I settled in the now-empty home above a carpenter’s workshop and lay down in the bed of a Jerusalem citizen, the images changed.</p><p>Not the dead woman by the city walls. Instead, two living women, dressed in clothes I had never seen before, riding across a large, open steppe. Flashes of their bodies followed one another: thighs clutching horsebacks, hands breaking open some sort of fruit, a head thrown back in laughter against a dove-grey sky. Mixed in with their otherness came a face I had only seen once but remembered perfectly, dark curls showing now he was without his turban, surrounded by the deep ochre of Canaän. No sign of Andrea’s attack marked him; his skin glowed with health underneath the same layer of dust that covered everything I did. A hand reached for the knife that had cut through my skin like butter. And then Andrea, seething with rage, leaping at him with a bloody sword, which exploded against my temple.</p><p>Heaving, I jolted up, hands clenched into fists. But the madman from my dreams slept like a child beside me, snoring gently from our dinner’s wine.</p><p>I sagged back into the bed, my heart thumping as if I’d just come from the fight. Andrea’s eyes, wide with a hatred I had never seen before, blended into those of the man who thought he’d beaten me.</p><p>Staring at a crack in the plaster of the ceiling, I revisited the images of my killer as he might have been when he was still alive. His eyes, dark like dates, would not leave my mind for the rest of the night, nor did they fade when the lark announced the twentieth dawn after the Liberation of Jerusalem.</p><p>I set about my day, throwing myself into my prayers.</p><p>No matter how many times I asked God to  wipe out the knowledge that he had killed me, I still felt my own blood gushing out over my hands, warmer and redder than I had ever imagined it.</p><p>Whatever miracle had happened during the siege, Christ did not elaborate. He did not tell me why He had dragged me back from the brink of death.</p><p>I stumbled back to the Genoese camp, through alleys that had since been cleared of their corpses. No Saracen, living or dead, remained between the city walls. My jaw clenched at the memory of my killer falling over the ledge. I could see it happening all over again, the fear as Andrea pressed him against the rock, the foreign prayers that it might be swift, and then those furious eyes staring down as I fell and fell and –</p><p>I slammed my fist against a random wall, relieved at the ache that crept over my skin. ‘Enough,’ I muttered, squeezing my eyes shut and slamming again.</p><p>It didn’t matter. He was dead now, praise God.</p><p>‘Nico,’ said Andrea, when I returned to our Genoese camp that night and joined our merry band of brothers around the fire. ‘You are not well. Jerusalem is not good for you.’</p><p>I stared across the flames.</p><p>Andrea’s features were familiar again, not distorted by anger, but gentle, concerned. His wounds had started to heal, although blotches of green and yellow travelled up his arms and left cheek. A fresh cut – from a brawl with some Byzantines – crossed his nose, twisting when Andrea flashed his smile.</p><p>The saltless bread tore easily in my hands, and I picked at small bits, rolling them into balls between my fingers. ‘Where would we go? Home?’</p><p>‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Or we could stay away a bit longer. See the big cities. Damascus, Antioch, Constantinople… When are we next going to get a free pass from the wife and the… your marriage to the Holy Mother Church? There’s a group leaving back to Constantinople in three days. We could join them, at least for the first leg of the journey.’</p><p>I stared at the brownish lump of bread. Victory or not, rations remained scarce and we could not afford to throw any food away.</p><p>So this was dinner. Again.</p><p>Andrea lowered his head to try and catch my gaze. ‘A change of scene will do you good. We missed out on some of the adventure by coming late to the party, but we can make up for that now. Check out some local cuisine, the native beauties of the land…’</p><p>‘Who else is coming?’</p><p>‘The Singer, Mattia…’</p><p>‘So no one who’s travelled by land. Shouldn’t we learn from their mistakes?’</p><p>‘They’ve been there, done that,’ said Andrea with a shrug. ‘Listen, we don’t have to decide now. Sleep on it. Either way, our ships are gone so unless you want to remain in the kingdom of Jerusalem…’</p><p>Chewing on the bread, I nodded. Maybe we should go. I had no idea.</p><p>Now martyrdom was no longer on the cards, I realised I had to plan for the rest of my life. I could return to San Michele and preach there. Always only two hours away from my family, I’d watch Andrea’s little ones grow up, guide them towards God. Alternatively, I could join the Defender of the Holy Sepulchre, Godfrey of Bouillon, and rebuild a Christian Jerusalem, or travel to the new Principality of Antioch, so I could still see the Mediterranean that led home while doing my duty in these foreign lands.</p><p>I didn’t know.</p><p>I just had absolutely no clue.</p><p>As I closed my eyes that night, the two women and my killer haunted my vision again. The women – still somewhere I could not name, speaking a language I could not recognise. But my killer’s voice was clear at he whispered the name of the city rising from the sea in front of him: ‘Ṣūr.’</p><p>Three days later, Andrea and I joined the caravan and headed north.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Getting closer to our first, non-bloody interaction with our dearly beloved. Hope you enjoyed it - do let me know what you think!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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